The Re(al)-Pimp, Chapter 17 : Sweet Party at Sweet's

That was the way the Blue Heaven got, between me and my whores. We got it there fast and it stayed there a long while. Its time didn't come to close down until years later.

The night after Delaney first showed up, Glass Top called in. He rapped like someone had his tab on the wrong speed, 78 on a 45. I thought maybe I should cop a crumb of girl off him, who knows what special space stuff he's got now. "The plans have changed kid. I'm in a hurry. Be outside your joint in fifteen minutes. You got that?" I got my "Yeah" in and he hung up. I went upstairs and gussied up. I only had one vine back then so it didn't take as much. I walked out just as Top pulled in front of the joint in his red Hog. He had his hand over the horn when he saw me. I got in and the Hog squealed from the curb. Everything about him made me think like maybe he was in a hurry, even the harsh whisper of the Hog's tires against the pavement. I asked what happened. He clued me in : "There's a big boxing match tonight. All the biggest pimps and whores in the country are gonna be at Sweet's after the fight. Kinda like a party. All of 'em use stuff. Even with Sweet's cut in the middle I'll still take off at least a coupla grand for my end." I thought "Maybe you should grow tits, and learn to play poker", but I didn't say anything. I didn't want anything disturbing the maniac from paying attention to the road, he barely could keep up with the Hog and I didn't want to end up encased in plaster. He went on "Sweet never goes to fights. He can't stand big crowds, and besides they won't let Miss Peaches into fights. He's there gnawing on his nails, waiting for this stuff. He ain't got none for himself, and he's got to cop some stuff for those birds coming in from the fight." I asked if he cracked anything about me to Sweet. That got him more excited.

"Kid, you ain't hip I'm a genius? He called and I rapped to him this morning. I played you off as my punk nephew from Kansas City. You got wild ideas you wanta be a pimp. I've tried to chill you back to K.C. to maybe hustle pool or even be a broom mechanic. You're a stupid, stubborn punk. I've told you a thousand times you ain't got it to pimp. But no, you got the itch, you gotta pimp. You would eat ten yards of Sweet's crap. You think he's God. You won't believe your uncle is tight with God. I'm Glass Top. I gotta save face even for a snot-nosed punk. Maybe if you hang around the inside of the fast track for a hot minute you'll get scared. You'll wise up, get outta my ass and run your ass back to K.C. Now Kid, don't shoot your jib off at his pad. If he don't remember you from the Roost, don't wake him up." I said, "Don't worry Top. I won't rank us. I'll never forget you, pal, for the cut in. That was sure some beautiful stuff you played for Sweet." He caressed his patent-leather hair. He erected his wide shoulders inside his blue mohair jacket. His pretty bitch face wore that terrible conceit and awful pride maybe of a cute mass murderer who never gets her victims' blood on her. The moon through the windshield shone flush on his face. It was full enough to match him. He said, "Kid, you ain't heard nothing yet. Shit, I done drove three whores screaming crazy with this brain. They in the boob box upstate right now babbling about Pretty Glass Top. Even Sweet ain't shipped but two up there. He's been pimping almost twice as long as me." I said, "Christ, Top, I don't get it. Why drive a whore nuts if she's still humping out the scratch. A stud would have to be slick as grease to plant bats in the skull of a bitch that was sane. I can't dig how a stud could do it. I ain't hip to it."

He said, "Sucker, what you don't dig, and ain't hip to would make a book bigger than this Hog just for the headings. Now you take Sweet, the two he crossed out were young white broads with small mileage. He's sick in the head. He's got an insane hate for the whole white race. He was a crumb crusher of seven down in Georgia when the white folks poisoned his skull for good. His mammy was jet black and beautiful. The peckerwoods for miles around all knew her and freaked off with her every chance they got. Back in those days black bitches weren't hip to the whole pimp game. Those white boys just plied her with moxie and maybe gave her a muslin scarf or a pair of carny earrings to swipe into her. She was just nineteen, his mammy, but as hot as a vixen hellraiser, one of them spirited bitches from down South. Sweet was her first, and only one she had with a black stud. There was a plantation thereabouts called Old Joyce Place. The peckerwood running it was dumb even for a white boy. He ran that thing into the ground. He couldn't find any nigger to eat his lousy porridge, so he bought convicts to work it. One day in May one of them jailbird niggers didn't feel like working any. Whitey whupped the nigger, and the nigger croaked him right back. It put the white folks thereabouts into a downright tizzy. Sweet's daddy's bad luck, he had an argument with his mammy over finding some peckerwood under the bed the day right after that. When he got put in jail the white folks broke him out of there and hung him, to teach the coons a lesson they can't be touching no white folk. Sweet's Mama loved his daddy. She went around screaming and cussing out them peckerwood boys. She swore up and down she'd prosecute they involved for murder. She said it to their face. They'd all fucked her, meaning she'd fucked them all herself right back. They weren't strangers, and the way his mama was, all sass and fire, none of them limpdick white boys stood up to her face. When her back was turned though, they found their courage. Just like dogs, in a mob. They grabbed her, to teach her a lesson they said. They took her to the Folsom Bridge crossing at Little River. They tied her up by the ankles. They hung her upside down from a tree. They did to her body all an angry pimp can think of, then after a day or so doused her in motor oil for an even burn and set her on fire. She was still alive. She screamed her lungs out. Sweet was there through it all, trying to jump up and reach his poor Mama down. As she roasted, some peckerwood boy went at her with a butcher's knife. He opened her belly up. She had a baby in there. It fell down to the ground. It cried. Once, it cried out. Then they stomped it underboot. After that, Sweet was taken in by a share-cropper. He worked the fields until he got seventeen. He ran away and caught a freight train North back in '28. He copped his first whore, a white girl, and drove her to suicide before he got eighteen." He paused. He steered the Hog with one hand. He took a cigarette from his jacket pocket. He punched in the dashboard lighter.

I thought, "No wonder Sweet's off his rocker. I wonder why Top really gave me that tight rundown on Sweet?" The lighter popped. Top lit his cigarette. He sucked hard. He blew out a white cloud against the windshield that for an instant blotted out the moon. He said, "I ain't insane like Sweet. My skull is clear and cool. I ain't no mixed-up Southern nigger. I was born in the North and I grew up in the North. Had white kids all around growing up. I don't hate white people or any other people. I ain't no black brute. I'm a pretty, brown-skined lover. I love people. When I was a square I was even engaged to marry a white girl. Her parents and their friends brought down the pressure on her. She chickened out. I guess I loved her. Right after we called it quits I went to a hospital for my nerves. I ain't had nothing but whores since. It's like I told you when I met you. Sweet's a Ford and I'm a Duesenberg. He's just an ugly lucky nut." I said, "But Top, you cracked your booby-box score was higher than Sweet's. Those three gibbering bitches upstate sure don't show no love for whore people."

He said, "There you go, fool. A young chump is just like a square bitch. He can't figure nothing out himself. He's gotta have a rundown on everything. Of course I drove those whores crazy, but for a sane reason, sucker. A pimp cops a whore. He cons her maybe if she stays in his corner humping his pockets fat, at the end of the rainbow she's got a husband and a soft easy chair. To hold her beak to the grindstone, he pumps air castles into her skull. She takes all the stable grief. She humps her ass into a cramp to outshine the other whores in the family. At first, it's easy for the bitch to star. As she gets older and uglier her competition gets younger and prettier. She don't have to be no brain to wake up there ain't no easy chair at the end. She gets hip there ain't never even been a rainbow. She gets larceny in her heart. She bullshits herself that if she can drive all those young pretty whores away from the pimp that rainbow might come true after all. If it don't, she'll get her revenge anyway. It's a violation of the pimp book to quit a whore. A bitch like that is a ticking bomb. Every day, her value to the pimp drops to the zero line. She's old, tired, and dangerous. She can rattle a pimp into goofing his whole game. If the pimp is a sucker he'll try to drive her away with his foot in her ass. She's almost a cinch to croak him or cross him into the joint. I'm a genius. I'm hip that after a bitch has had maybe ten-thousand tricks drill her she ain't too steady, skullwise. I don't tip her I'm salty and disgusted. I talk like a sweet head-shrinker to her. Instead of air castles, I pump her full of H. Her skull starts to jelly. I'll be worried as hell about her. I'll start sneaking slugs of morphine or chloral hydrate into her shots. While she's out, I'll maybe douse her with chicken blood. She comes to, I'll tell her I brought her in from the street. I tell her I hope you didn't croak anybody while you were sleepwalking. I got a thousand ways to drive 'em goofy. That last broad I flipped, I hung her out a fifth floor window. I had given her a jolt of pure cocaine so she'd wake up outside that window. I was holding her by both wrists. Her feet were dangling in the air. She opened her eyes. When she looked down she screamed like a scared baby. She was screaming when they came to get her. You see, kid, I'm all business. I ain't got an ounce of hate in me."

By then he had been driving for at least an hour. I had lost track of time and space. I saw no black faces in the streets around us. I saw tall gleaming apartment houses. Some so tall they seemed welded to the night sky. I said, "Yeah Top, you're a cold clever stud all right. I'm sure glad you're yanking my coat. Jesus! Sweet must live in a white neighborhood." He said, "Yeah kid, he lives just around that next corner, in a penthouse. Like I told you he's lucky as a shit-house rat. It's a million-dollar building. The old white broad that owns it is Sweet's freak white dog." I said, "But don't the white tenants blow the roof because Sweet lives there?" He said, "Sweet's old white broad owns the building, but Sweet runs it. At least he runs it through a old squared-out pimp pal of his. Sweet stuck him into a pad on the ground floor. Patch Eye, the old stud, collects the rents and keeps the porters and other flunkys on their toes. Most all the tenants are white gamblers and hustlers. They got young whores running naked back and forth down the halls most of the time. Sweet's got the old ex-pimp running book wide open. The action a week just from the tenants runs maybe five grand. Maybe more. There's always some big event going, like tonight. I'll say it a thousand times : Sweet is a lucky stud." He turned the corner and eased the Hog into the curb in front of a snow-white apartment building. A moss-green canvas canopy ran from the edge of the curb twenty-five yards to the fancy front. A gaunt white stud in a green monkey suit was standing in stooped attention at the curb. We got out. Top walked around the Hog.

The doorman said, "Good evening, gentlemen." Top said, "Hey Jack, do something for me. When you take my wheels to the back see that they's parked close to an exit. When I come out I don't wanna hassle outta there. You got that ?" The doorman nodded, "Yes, Sir. I'll make sure of it, sir." Top patted his back with a fin in his palm, the oldest magic trick in the book. We walked into the green-painted, black-marbled foyer. I was trembling like maybe a hick virgin on a casting couch. We walked up the half-dozen marble steps to an invisible glass door. A broad toasted to the creamy hues of fresh cocoa butter slid it open. We stepped into the green-and-pearl lobby. A tan broad as flashy as a Cotton Club pony sat behind a blond desk. We walked across the quicksand pearl carpet to the front of it. She flashed two perfect dozen of the thirty-two. Her voice was contralto silk. Maybe it was lyrical soprano brocade, what do I know. She said, "Good evening, may I help you?" Top said, "I'm officer O'Flaherty. Danny O'Flaherty. This nigger here's my nephew, Mark Huntleaks. We're here to check on Mr. Jones." She turned to a switchboard and shoved some tiny pricks in some tiny holes. Then she said "Penthouse, Danny O'Flaherty and my cunt leaks." After a moment we got the ivory flash again. The pony said, "Thank you so much for waiting. Mr. Jones is at home and will see you. The elevator's over there, if you please."

I followed Top to the elevators, trying to hold it in. It was harder than any gunion. A pretty brown-skin broad in a tight green uniform zipped us to the fifteenth floor. Top noticed my peeping and said "They're all working, just not tonight. Ain't that right, honey ?" She turned to face him and smiled a perfect whore smile. He faced her close and slid a folded saw right between her pushed together tits. She blew him a kiss upclose. The brass door opened. We stepped out onto a gold-carpeted entrance hall. It was larger than Top's living room. A skinny Filipino broad in a gold lame outfit came toward us. It clung to her so tight it made her look naked, made of polished gold. She was grinning, bowing her head and dangling her tits. The crystal chandelier overhead glittered on her second skin. She took our lids and deposited them on a limb of a mock mother-of-pearl tree. She said "It is Sumi's great honor to welcome you sirs tonight. Follow, please."

We followed to the brink of a sunken living room. It was like a Pasha's passion pit. A green light inside the gurgling bowl of a huge fountain beamed on the enraptured face of a stone woman squatting over it. She was nude and lifesize. The red light inside her skull blazed out through her eyes trained straight ahead. Her delicate hands pressed down and away on the sides of long bamboo sticks crumpling her elongated breasts. From the right place well detailed she was peeing, endlessly and serenely, on the face of an older gent trapped in the fountain bowl. We stepped down to the intricate oriental carpet. Its patterns looked like they could keep a smoked out whore occupied for days. Sweet was sitting across the dim room on a white velour couch. He was wearing a white satin smoking jacket. It made him look just like a huge black fly fallen in a bucket of milk. Miss Peaches lay curled at his side. She was resting her black spotted head on a silk turquoise pillow. Sweet was stroking her back. She purred and locked her yellow eyes on us. I got a whiff of her raw animal odor. Sweet said, "Sit yo black asses down. Sweetheart, you been dangling me. What happened? Did that raggedy nickel Hog break down? So this is your square country nephew?"

Top sat on a couch beside Miss Peaches. I sat in a blue velour chair several yards to the side of Top. Sweet's gray eyes were flicking up and down me. I was nervous. I grinned at him. I jerked my eyes away to a large picture on the wall over the couch. A naked white broad was on her hands and knees, her wrists bound to a stake driven in the ground. A Great Dane with his red tongue lolling out was astraddle her back. He had his paws hooked under her breasts. Her blonde head was turned looking back at him, her blue eyes popped wide open. Her mouth was open too, her tongue out trying to catch some spit. She had a big knot of thick rope around her neck. Behind her some schoolgirls holding hands looked on with awe in their blue eyes. Top said, "Man, that Hog ain't no plane. I got here quick as I could. You know I don't play no games on you, honey." I said, "Thank you, Mr. Jones, for letting me come along."

My voice triggered the Roost memory. He stiffened and glared at me. He smashed his hooks together. It sounded like pistol shots. Peaches growled and sneered. He said, "Ain't you the tinhorn punk that ran off from my bitch ?" I said, "Yeah, I'm one and the same. I want to beg your pardon for that night. Maybe I coulda gotten a pass if I had told you I'm your pal's nephew. I ain't got no sense, Mr. Jones. I took after my idiot father." Sweet said, "Top, this punk ain't hundred percent hopeless. He's silly as a bitch grinning all the time, but dig how he butters out the con to keep his balls outta the fire. He sure ain't got no tender dick to turn down my pretty big-ass Mimi." Then he turned to me "Kid, I love black boys with the urge to pimp. Ain't no surer way to amount to something. Your uncle ain't but a good pimp. I'm the greatest in the world. He wired me he's hoping you'll fold on this track and split back to the sticks. You got one whore he tells me. You could have the makings. This joint is going to be crawling with fast whores in a coupla hours. I'm gonna be pinning you. I'm gonna watch how you handle yourself. Maybe I'm gonna make you my protege. You gotta be icy; understand, kid, icy, icy? You gotta stop that grinning. Freeze your map and keep it that way. Maybe I'm gonna prove to your half-ass pimp uncle that I can train even a mule to win the Kentucky Derby."

Top said, "Shit, honey! You didn't have to go tip him. I'm pulling for his split. I love the kid. I just don't think he can cut the pimp game. The kid raps good, I ain't denying it. He should be maybe a Murphy player or even a mitt man. His ticker ain't icy enough to pimp on this track. I bet he loves that whore of his." I thought, "Top's pad is a pigsty compared to this layout. It looks like I'm in." Sweet said, "Sweetheart, let's go cap up and bag that stuff for those jokers. I'm gonna have old Patch Eye come up here and deal it off. I ain't no dope peddler." He turned to me again "Kid, you can cool it. Have one of my whores bring you a taste, or cop for yourself if you want from the bar over there."

They went around a silk screen hand-painted in gold and through a doorway. Peaches padded behind them. I saw a heavy silver bell resting on a table beside the couch. I rung it once, to see what happens. It weighed half a Hog. The whore that sat on Sweet's left in the Doozy zipped in. "What can I get you, kid ?" I looked her up and down. She had a dress on made of a gauze so thin I saw her every contour underneath. She had the curves of dreams all over her. I asked what's her name. Then I said "Good evening Lulu. Call me Iceberg." She bent over to face me and whispered "What can I get you, Iceberg ?" Her breath was so hot it caramelized my face. I said "That's just the thing, I don't know what to have. If I knew I'd have copped myself. I've never been to a place this hip before." She laughed as tinkly as the bell. She asked me if I like sweet or sour. I said sweet. She asked me if I like to lick a whore or ram it in. I said I'm too lazy to ram anything. She asked if milk's better than lemonade. I said lemonade's much better. She asked me if I stay up late or go to bed early. I said I never go to bed. She asked me black cherry or vanilla ? I chose the cherry. She said she'll be right back. She shook her ass all the way to the turquoise bar across the room, holding her hand underneath to accentuate the bumps as she went. She came back with a tall glass, frosted on the outside. I took a sip. It was divine. I told her so, I said this is the best drink I had ever tasted in my life. I asked her what's it made of ? She said she'll never tell me that, and she ain't ever gonna make it for me again, either. I pouted. She said "Unless you kiss my ass." I said "But angel doll... I'm here tryna be a pimp. Sweet said he's got his eye on me." She nodded. "If I kiss your ass he ain't ever gonna think me nothing but a sucker." She smiled at me "And aintcha ?" "Yeah," I said. But he don't have to find out the first time he lays his eyes on me, does he ?" She smiled at me "I guess he don't." I shrugged with a sad face, "Well... thank you for the drink". She smiled slyly as she went away "Anytime, cutie pie."

I took my golden cool drink and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling glass door. I slid it open and stepped up into the patio. The ice-cream-yellow moon seemed close enough to lick. I didn't try licking it, though. It wouldn't have been pimp enough. I walked to the pearl-white parapet. Head in my hands I looked out at the brilliant sea of emerald and ruby neon bursting pastel skyrockets toward the cobalt blue sky. The stars were all sapphire, pools of cool water. They made me feel a fool. I thought, "Sweet sure has caught lightning in a thimble. He came out of the white man's cotton fields. He's had a brother, died under a boot. He's pimped himself up to this. He's living high in the sky like a black God in heaven with the white people. He ain't no nigger doctor. He ain't no hot-sheet nigger preacher. They're not here, either. He is. He pimped up his scratch passport. That barbed-wire stockade is a million miles away. I got more education, I'm better looking, I'm younger, too, than he is. If he lucked out I hope I'll luck out, but if he did it, I can do it too."

I remembered Henry, and how religious he was. Look what happened to him. I remembered how I used to kneel every night by the side of the bed to pray. I really believed in God then. I thought he existed, like a chump stood up on a date. At first he thinks she's coming, she's coming, any minute now. As the hours and years add up and the broad's still no show though... eventually even the worst chump gets on with his life. You can't wait on the same chair until you're eighty because some broad forgot sometime sixty-five years ago she had a date one night. I know there's some who try, but there's some who try anything that can be tried. I wasn't about to, and now after all these years I can say I've not missed much : the broad didn't show in sixty years just the same as she didn't show in ten. Though, who knows...

Maybe some morning about dawn all the black folks will sing Hallelujah! Maybe God's white board of directors will untie the red tape. Maybe God himself will roll up his sleeves one day and do a spot of work to buy all the salt he's eaten so far. Thing is, I couldn't wait. I con people I'm lazy when I'm not lazy all the time, just most times. I'm lazy like the sky is black, there's still stars twinkle here and there. I never tried to con anyone I'm patient, which I never was. If there were a joker up there or not, it made no difference anyhow. Them white folks doing all the fine living and sucking up all the gravy say they earned it. Fine. I gotta have some of that living and some of that gravy myself. I'll say I earned it too, and who don't like it can go pray to whatever jokers he prefer. I didn't wanta be a stickup man, or a dope peddler. I sure as hell wasn't going to be a porter, or dishwasher. I wouldn't have my whores do that. Pimping's good enough for me, and everyone else can as well go straight to hell.

I looked down over the parapet. I wondered if the undertaker had been born yet who was slick enough to paste a sucker's ass together after a Brodie fifteen-stories down. I heard "Tuxedo Junction" pulsing behind me. My drink was drained. I turned and walked toward the glass door. I slid the door open to a chorus of profanity. The whore scent flared my nostrils. There must have been thirty yapping pimps and twice as many whores lounging around the spacious pit. I stepped down and slid the door shut. An ebony midget of a pimp was sprawled in the blue velour chair. A tawny tan tigress was kneeling before him, her chin rammed into his crotch. She had him clutched around the waist like a humping twodollar trick in an alley. Her dreamy maroon eyes rolled toward the top of her long skull. She was staring at his fat blue lips. The rock on his finger exploded blue-white, frozen fireworks. He raised his glass to curse all square bitches. He was con-toasting all whores. The room got silent. Somebody had strangled the gold phonograph in the corner.

He toasted: "I wouldn't touch a square bitch to push her dumb ass in a ditch. Their slits are funky and their tits picayune. Their star sign's a vinegarroon. They got green puke between their rotting toes, and snot runs from their clappy nose. I know they'll all die syphilitic wrecks, but I hope they slip during sex, fall back through their own assholes, and break their mother-fucking necks!"

It was the first time I'd heard it. It was the first time for most of the crowd, too. They roared and begged him to do it again. Suddenly he turned toward the hand-painted Chinese screen. All eyes turned to Top and Sweet coming into the room. An old black stud wearing a white silk patch over his right eye trailed behind them. Peaches followed him, looking just like a vulture decked out in a gray mohair vine. The cat stood before the white velour couch and bared her fangs. The three pimps sitting there scattered off like quail hearing buckshot. They thumped their rear ends to the carpet a safe distance later. Sweet, Top, and Peaches sat on the couch the cat had conquered. I sat on a satin pillow in the corner near the glass door. I watched the show. I saw Patch Eye go and sit behind the bar. Everybody was in a big half-circle around the couch. It was like the couch was a stage, and Sweet the spotlighted star. He said, "Well, how did you silly bastards like the fight? Did the nigger murder that peckerwood or did his black ass turn shit yellow?"

A Southern white whore with a wide face and a sultry voice like Bankhead's drawled, "Mistah Jones, Ahm happy to repoat thet the niggah run the white stud back intu his mammy's ass in thu fust round." Everybody laughed except Sweet. He was crashing together his mitts. I wondered what madness bubbled in his skull as he stared at her. A high-ass yellow broad flicked life back into the phonograph. "Gloomy Sunday," the suicide's favorite, dirged through the room. She stared at me as she came away. I felt sorry I didn't think to bring Pepper, or at least the runt along. Sweet said, "All right you freakish pigs. Patch Eye's got outfits and bags of poison. You got the go sign to croak yourselves." They started rising from the satin pillows and velour ottomans, crowding around Patch Eye at the bar.

The high-ass yellow broad came to me. She stooped in front of me. The largest thing she wore were two thick leather belts fastened around her thighs right under her ass. Six short throwing knives gleamed their sharpness from their leather loops on either side. I saw black tracks on her inner thighs. The inside of her gaping cat was beef-steak red. She had a shiv slash on the right side of her face. It was a livid gully from the corner of her eye to the corner of her twisted mouth. Her coffee-colored eyes whirled inside her skull. She was higher than the Home Insurance Building, except they hadn't demolished her yet. Not entirely, anyhow. I grinned carefully. Sweet was digging us from across the room, shaking his head in disgust. I wondered if he thought I oughta slug her in the jib and maybe take the carving like a fish. She said, "Let me see that pretty dick, handsome." I said "Let me see your million dollars first, bashful." She gave me one mean stare. "Nigger, you ain't heard of me? I'm Red Cora from Detroit. That red is for blood. You ain't hip I'm a thieving bitch that croaked two studs? Now I said show that dick." I grinned at her stupid name. "Chill it, Detroit. I left my swipe back home. I keep it in the sugar box, with the savings." She put her hands on her belts and scowled at me. "Call me Cora, little bullshit nigger. Ain't you a bitch with one whore? You gonna starve to death, nigger, if she's a chump flat-backer. Nigger, you better get hip and cop a thief." A big husky broad with a spike in one hand and pack of stuff in the other took me off the hook. She kneed Cora's spine. "Bitch, wanna go halves with me on this fine dope ? You can Georgia this skinny nigger later." I watched Cora's rear end twist away from me. She and the husky broad went to the bar and got a spoon and a glass of water. I looked at Sweet. He was giving me a cold stare. I thought, "This track is too fast even for itself. I have no idea what to do. With young soft bitches I'm a champ even by myself, but I really need my main whores with me to square off with these demented jades. I really shouldn't have left them at home."

I sat in the corner bug-eyed for two hours, trying to figure out what gives. Ain't these suckers got any need for money ? I left my whores working to come here and run into all these jokers whose whores apparently don't need to work any. Sweet going around with five fine bitches in his car, neither dropping them off ready to kill nor picking them back up dog-tired, like a farmer chaining up five tractors to each other so he can go around the farmhouse yelling "choo! choo!". Looking for studs to pay double saws to lay them, just like a god-damned freak square. Then all these jokers and dumb bitches... what's Albacora Detroit gonna steal from me with those repurposed letter openers ? They looked like they'd have worked great scraping off the dirt from under some toenails. Now if only I had any.

My ears flapped to the super-slick dialogue. I was excited by the fast-paced, smooth byplay between these wizards of pimpdom. Albacora kept circling me. She was H'd out of her skull, which somehow made her go to the patio and then come right back in again. Each pass she'd crack on me. At first I thought she was kidding about seeing my swipe, but she acted just like she missed out on highschool and couldn't get over the loss. Several of Sweet's whores came in that hadn't been at the Roost with him that first time I saw him. There wasn't a black bitch or a tough thigh among them. I thought it's pretty dumb to have all your whores the same way, but I guess that's how he liked it. It didn't make sense to me any. What's he do with them in a few years, eat them ? If his old whores don't stick with him, why would the young ones ? Just because they're dumber ? He's gotta have something to offer, even if he's just conning them he still got to at least look like he has something to offer. A pimp with all new whores looks just like a car salesman with all old cars. Especially one that's been at it for years. I ended up with a coupla old whores in just a few weeks. I got mine old, I didn't age them myself. What's he been doing ? After cracking my head with it for a while I finally figured he's just keeping his old ones out of sight. These young dumb bitches are just for the bait, and they're not that dumb, either. Glass Top said he has at least one old whore, that owns the building for him. That must be it, he doesn't expose his top floor. I thought I'd run this by Pepper, see what she says. I didn't think she's ready to go into the convent yet, though. That bitch sure loved to hump.

There was a giant black pimp from the apple. Not the big one, the mini one. He had three of his whores with him. He was one of the very few at the party that didn't bang stuff. He spent all night boasting about how he had his swipe trained. He held a glass in his hand, towering over Sweet and Top on the couch. He said, "Sweet, ain't a bitch living can pop me off unless I want her to. I don't care if she's got velvet suction cups in her cat. Her jib can have a college degree, she ain't gonna make me pop against my will. I got the toughest swipe in the world. I got a C note to back my crack." Sweet said, "Sucker, I got a young bitch I turned out six months ago that could blow that tender sucker swipe of yours in all of five minutes. I ain't going to teach you no lesson for a C note. If that C ain't all you got, drop a G with Glass Top and you've got a bet."

The big joker snatched a roll from his side and G'd that C in Top's palm. Sweet eased a bale of C notes from the pocket of his smoking jacket. He covered the bet in Top's hand. A beautiful yellow broad, couldn't have been more than seventeen, kneeled before the standing giant. She freed her tits to the cheers of the growing audience and chomped his swelling dick with their softness. She was a performer alright. She toyed with him, her mouth open an inch away from his rock-hard prick, blowing hot lava on it. She carressed the desperate swipe in front of her mouth like she owned it. After a minute she lifted her beautiful green eyes to meet his, and whispered "Are you ready, lover ?" He was moving in tune with her movements like hypnotized. She gave his dick one sweet kiss on the tip and it shot its white-hot juice all over her instantly. She licked her lips. She was a snake charmer alright. She had won the bet for Sweet, but she humiliated the poor sucker into the ground too. All it took for him to explode all over her was one small little kiss! He stood there for a long moment with his eyes closed and a goofy grin on his face. One of his three out of work whores snickered. He slapped her hard on the jaw. He went to the bar. I wondered how long that poor bitch took to make the grand he invested for her. I wondered if this young bitch will be worth a million just like Pepper by the time she's her age. Sweet was pratting loud "You believe I bought that bitch right from her mammy ? She cost me fiddy bucks!" I thought "The loser's you, Sweet. My million dollar broad ain't cost me a half cent."

I got up and went towards the Chinese screen through the door. On the way over I hissed at Albacora "Bitch, I'm going to take a piss. You still wanna see that dick ? Now's your chance, bitch!" I went down a long hall. I passed three way-out bedrooms. I went into a mirrored john. It was as big as a bedroom itself. Sweet even had urinals on the wall in there. Just as I was undoing my pants that tough bitch Cora darted in, licking out her red tongue, her eyes voodooing in her skull. She was hot as hell for my innocence and youth, a double murderess with a skull load of H and a hot jib. I stood there before the deadly bitch. I said "Sit yourself down in the urinal, bitch. I don't know how to piss unless it's on an ugly whore's face. You dig ?" It was like tickling a leopard with a broom straw right over its itty bitty balls. She sat herself down, feet outside on either side. She took her hands off those belts and put them behind her head. I let go on her face. She opened her mouth. I said "Open your eyes, bitch. It's supposed to go in your nose through your eyes, ain't your Daddy taught you no thing ?" That's when Sweet bulled in. He seized a fistful of her long hair. She squealed in pain. He jerked her away from me toward the door. He cussed her as he drove his needle-toed shoe into her wide caboose several times. He said, "Bull-shit bitch, this chump is in my school. I ain't gonna let you Georgia him. Now nix, bitch, nix."

I heard her high heels staccato against the tile as she fled. He turned toward me. His black face was stone gray. He shouted, "Listen you stupid little motherfucker. You know why that bitch screwed you around? You always grinning like a Cheshire Cat. What's funny? Can't I get the sucker outta you? I can't make a pimp outta a pussy like you. I told you once, do I have to tell you a thousand times? Greenass nigger, to be a good pimp, you gotta be icy, cold like the inside of a dead-whore's pussy." Then he looked around. "What you doin' here, nigger ?!" I said "I came out here to take a leak, Mr. Jones sir. I hope that's alright." He started laughing like I hit him with a big stick o' funny upside the head. He was tearing up, leaning against the wall. He grunted "You out here pissing all over that funky bitch ?!" I said "Well yeah. How's it done on the fast track ? At home I always piss on a whore face, it makes the flow mellow. I don't know I can even go if there ain't a grinning bitch licking her lips opposite. I ain't tried in too long." He looked at his hand. He grunted "Motherfucker" and went to the sink. I walked out.

When Sweet came out I was rapping with the first broad. She came to me, I didn't go to her. She asked me if it's true I took a leak all over Red Cora. I said "Listen prettyful, you fix me a drink I tell you a story." She shot towards the bar and shot right back faster than the speed of spite. I started "Well sweetslit, I..." and that's when Sweet Jones bellowed "Where's that Pissberg, coning everyone he's new on the game ?" Everyone froze. I let out "Right here talking to sweetslit, honey." They were too petrified to laugh. He stomped to me like a steam engine some joker had hitched on legs. Maybe he'd forget I ain't yellow any ? I remembered what Glass Top had told me, about those four murders. When he was face to face he yelled out "How many whores you got ?" I said "I got four at home." Glass Top was striding towards me. Sweet turned to him "How about that ?" Glass Top grinned. "If he conned you then he conned me too, honey." Sweet spat "Yeah. He conned you he's your nephew when he fell outta his mammy's ass." Then he bellowed at me "From now on, you my nephew. Got that ?" I said "Sure Mr. Jones sir. But how's about when you come to my party, we switch around. I wanna be someone's uncle for a spell too." I could tell he wanted to laugh, but he held it in. He spun around. "I smell the funky stale slit on a square bitch. Where they at ?" Everyone looked at each other. Some of the broads living in the building, squared out more or less with their white jokers had snuck in to the party. Sweet said "Ain't it midnight yet ? All bitches step out." Every last bitch there ditched whatever she had on her back. The square broads too, but they weren't fast enough. They had too much on, so for a moment they stood out in the sea of whores like four sore thumbs twiddling on themselves.

Sweet yelled out "Now's time for the turnout game. Entry's for free but what it cost. Who's got the game and the fame ? Step up." Patches had disappeared, but he came out with a struggling white broad. She was barefoot, whimpering quietly, her arms roped tight together. She bit on a round wooden ball, strapped to her pretty head. She had leather patches over her eyes. Her big white girl titties jutted out. A gangly stud plonked a pile of bills in Sweet's open paw and walked up to her. Patch Eye took her eyepatches off. Her black eyes were wild with fear underneath. She darted them every which way and stiffened up. I don't think she was bare with people before. The stud kept pratting her and prancing around her like a monkey on a stick. She just stood and whimpered, Patch Eye holding her by the arm. Glass Top whispered in my ear "Now you believe the ugly bastard is insane?" I asked him what the hell is he doing ? He told me he lines up square broads like that, and any stud that's got a grand can prat them up. If he turns them, he gets to keep 'em. If not, another stud gets a shot. "How long's he got ?" Glas Top shook his head. "Until Sweet says he's had enough." Sweet was quizzing some bitches on the floor. I think he said the joker's had enough, because he yelled out "Who's next ? Step right up !" I asked Glass Top why's he not hit it up ? He shook his head. "You got a lot to learn, kid." I think so did some other studs, because another joker plonked the bills in Sweet's mitt and took to pratting and hopping around the broad.

I fingered for sweetslit. She zipped right in. I said "Can you turn the white broad ?" She said "I ain't never tried, Pissberg honey." I said "Want me to pull your coat ?" She said "I ain't got no coat or anythig, honey. Can't you see that ?" but she kneeled down next to me, ears opened up. I said "You go up to her. You look at her straight in the eye for a beat. Then you grab her in your arms sweetly like the whore you are. You whisper in her ear 'Honey, don't worry yourself. Ain't nothing gonna happen to you. The longer you hold out, the more money he makes from the dumb studs tryna turn you for the fame. The more afraid you are, the longer you hold out. That's why he puts the scare in you. That's all. You got all the power, honey. The pratting stud ain't got nothing on you. He's out a grand and dancing eight to the bar. It's up to you whether he's out his scratch or not. So put that worry out of your mind and enjoy yourself, ain't many times in life you get to do that." She looked at me. "You figure that'll work ?" I smiled like the Cheshire Cat. "If you say it right it's gonna work, alright. You a charmer or not ?" She shook her head. "I ain't got a grand no-how". I grabbed her by her hand and stood up. I dragged her right over to Sweet. I said "This bitch one of yours, unc' ?" He looked at her in my hand. Bitch shivered like he was blowing bootleg air from Canada on her from those gray peppers of his. He turned to me "You wanta piss again or what ?" I said "I pulled her coat to some fine pimp game talk. You gonna let her prat the broad ?" Sweet nearly laughed. He had it in him, but he held it tight. "This I gotta see" he said. Sweetslit walked over, grabbed the broad. A minute later that square bitch was crumpled at her feet, squirting from the eyes and squeezing slit's ankles with her belly and thighs. Sweet stood up. "Well I'll be! The jasper broad turned out alright!"

They had more girls after that, a black bitch with a lot of spit in her that turned out for an older pimp with hair on his face like General Lee, a small Chinese doll, I don't remember what all. Then after a while pratting and strutting around they did the Queen Come. Half the bitches in the joint lined up against the wall, sitting on their ass, knees hooked apart. When Sweet said "Hit it!" they all started rubbing right atop their slits, moaning and licking their fingers. The first one to get herself off with one hand was Queen Come of the party, she got to sit in the middle on a big couch and all the other bitches pampered her like a real queen. It took some redhead broad all of half a minute before she was bucking like crazy. A coupla broads fingered her inside to check her out and they gave her the win. Most of 'em were done before two minutes were out. No wonder suckers come out looking for a turned out whore, I ain't ever heard of no square broad come at all, let alone on a timer like that. Two minutes ? Ain't ever happened, that.

Eventually I had enough. I told Sweet I gots to cop some doss. He said careful not to piss on it, kid. I zigzagged through the snickering whores and pimps. I made it across the pit to the elevator. The Filipino standing beside it, pressing the down button, looked like a friendly brown snake sausaged in gold foil. She reached up and stroked my jacket collar down flat from around my ears. She took my lid off the pearl tree, stuck it on my skull and snapped the brim. I felt the sweat band needle an aching boil. She said, "Good night, Sir. Sammee hopes you had fine time." I said, "Sammee, bitch, it's been a wild night. I'll never forget it." I stepped out of the gilded cage into the lobby. I saw a winking red-arrowed sign in the rear. I walked to the glass door below it. I went down the white stone steps to the street.

I felt hard and lucky as a horseshoe. The little bit I had snorted back there had me froggy, like it had fitted wings on my feet. I felt cool, breathless, and magnificent. It was a balmy eighty degrees. I was glad I'd left the benny. I walked toward a rainbow bouquet of neon maybe ten blocks away. My senses screamed on the razor-edge of cocaine. It was like walking through a battlefield. The streaking headlights of the cars arcing the night were giant tracer bullets. The rattling crashing street-cars were army tanks. The frightened, hopeless faces of the passengers peered through the grimy windows. They were battleshocked soldiers doomed forever to the front trenches. I passed beneath an El-train bridge. A terrified, glowing face loomed toward me in the tunnel's gloom. It was an elderly white man trapped behind enemy lines. A train furled by overhead. It bombed and strafed the street. The shrapnel fell in gritty clouds.

I was too nervous for the combat zone. I whistled at a general in a yellow staff car to halt. He whisked me past that oasis of neon. It turned out he was a mercenary. He shafted me seven slats and a quarter for the evacuation.